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Super Easy Lemon Bars – 5 ingredients

Super Easy Lemon Bars. With only 5 simple ingredients and an incredibly easy recipe you can bake these luscious lemon bars that all who try, just rave about!

Super Easy Lemon Bars

Great lemon bars are an absolute baking classic and when I came home from school yesterday I found the house filled with the scent of these easy-to-make yet simply irresistible cookie bars.

Easy is the operative word in this recipe with a simple 3 ingredient crispy shortbread bottom and a simple whisked together lemon custard top. By the end of the day, the entire batch had disappeared.

Super Easy Lemon Bars

With only 5 simple ingredients, these lemon bars are sure to become a new stand by recipe in your house like it did in mine. Once you see how fast and easy it is to throw together a batch of these incredibly tangy and delicious lemon bars, you’ll never waste another lemon again.

For lime lovers check out the Lime Bars version of this fantastic, easy recipe.

Using a pastry cutter or in a food processor blend together the butter sugar and flour.

Press evenly into the bottom of a greased and parchment paper lined 9×13 inch baking pan.

Bake for 20 to minutes at 350 degrees F ( 325 degrees F if you are using glass bake-ware) The bottom should just be beginning to brown slightly at the top edges.

For the lemon topping

Simply whisk together the sugar flour, eggs, zest and lemon juice until the sugar is dissolved.

Allow the topping to sit for about 10 minutes before whisking together well again and pouring over the baked shortbread base.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about another 20- 25 minutes or until the top is slightly browned and the custard appears to be set. Cool completely. Sprinkle with icing sugar when cool or try adding a meringue topping.

The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.

Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.

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Oh my goodness Barry, these are phenomenal!!! Holy cow. Just made these today and I think I screwed up a little bit – disnt let filling sit for 10 BEFORE I mixed it and I think I overtakes them a tad. I have a 3yo and 14 month old twins do I am lucky I even got to make these!! They are SO good though!! Thank you do much for sharing 🙂

THANK-YOU! I’ve been looking for a simple lemon bar recipe to make for 200 at an upcoming Christmas community event. Should I chill them before cutting? Also, if I make them a day or two ahead of time would it be best to keep them in the fridge or at room temp? Thanks again! 🙂

Okay i don’t cook much but could’t help but try this recipe! Question, I used an electric mixer to mix the crust part. (which was kinda a mess) – i don’t have a food proccessor.
it was really powdery. once i got it to the pan though i just used my fingers and got it together? and also is the filling suppose to be kinda runny before adding it to the crust?

A mixer must have been quite a mess! You may have also over measured the flour but as long as you pressed it firmly into the pan it should have worked pretty well. The topping will be quite runny before baking.

This recipe is the best! I made them at Christmas and they never made it to the dessert table. After the first person tried one everyone wanted one and they were gone 10 minutes after I walked in the door. I’m an inexperienced baker and all the Rock recipes I’ve tried (about 6 now) have turned out great – I love this site!! The strawberry chiffon bars are another huge hit with my family. Thanks so very much for sharing!

Baking these for the first time for my husband who loves anything lemon. Curious if the crust is to be cooled before pouring topping over?? Or just pour ready topping right after you take crust out of oven after it’s prebake?? I’m going to go ahead and pour topping over the hot crust………

I’ve got these in the oven right now; I can’t wait to try them! Only change I made was that I ended up needing four lemons instead of two in order to get 3/4 of a cup of juice. Maybe my lemons weren’t as juicy! 🙂

I just pulled these from my oven! They went together fast , easy. They smell and look awesome. ( I added alittle spash of homemade limoncello) and I happened to have fresh meyer lemons ♡ YUM! Thanks for sharing.

I made these Lemon Bars for my brother for his Birthday. I took the whole pan to him and did not cut them. He tasted them and said they were delicious but he wanted to know why they had paper under them. I reread the recipe and did not see any instructions for removing the paper.
did miss something. Overall a great easy recipe and delicious too.

I truly mean no disrespect and I hope you are not offended but that really did make me chuckle out loud. My blog has been visited by millions of people and I have written hundreds of recipes that use parchment paper to line pans and never in the past 8 years has anyone ever mentioned this. Your brother must have been pretty hungry! 😉 I’ve never seen parchment paper stick to anything baked ever before either. I’m afraid that comes under the umbrella of self explanatory. My wife just said you never have to tell someone to remove the paper liner from a cupcake before eating it. LOL! Sorry, I’m counting on your sense of humor here. 🙂

These look amazing. Lemon bars are my fav. I’m so glad this recipe doesn’t call for lemon pudding. I love raw ingredients and not anything boxed. I’m going to be making this tomorrow. I have something to look forward to tomorrow evening. Thanks! 🙂

P.s. Arlene, I saw no one answered your question. 1/4 cup of butter is half the stick of butter 🙂

Do these freeze ok? Trying to get the rest of my christmas baking done and want to make these and hoping they can be frozen. I have all 3 of the Rock Recipe cook books and love trying the recipes. Great gift for people how live away like myself!

Twice I have made these, first time with a gluten free flour replacement. Worked out fine, a little more dense base than with flour. The lemon seem to be overpowering. as I used the zest and juice of two lemons. Having to top up the lemon juice to 2/3 cup with real lemon concentrate. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the outcome. It was worth a try.
Second attempt I used a little less lemon zest, zest of 1 1/2 lemons. Juice of 4 smaller lemons. Regular flour. I have yet to try them as they are in the cooling process. Smelling, looking awesome. Am a huge fan of your recipes Barry.

The only thing I do differently, at the advise from a fellow baker, is I melt the butter and mix in the flour/sugar for the crust and pat down in pan and bake per instructions. I would have never thought this was a good idea–now I don’t know if I will ever use my pastry cutter again. I have made these 3 times this way and the crust is awesome this way and what a time saver!!!!

Still laughing about the paper on the bottom and when to remove. And great analogy about a cupcake!

Anyway, thank you for such a great recipe using more than a lousy tablespoon or two of lemon juice!

I made these at Christmas and gave to neighbors with other cookie treats and I am asked to make more!!!! My truly favorite part is the crust! I’ve never been able to make pie crust but you’re instructions made it easy and perfect! Thank you!

I actually use the fine side of a box grater to zest lemons. The goal is to avoid as much of the bitter white part of the peel as possible. I then put the grated zest on a cutting board and finely mince it into specks using a chefs knife.

Just wanted to say that this recipe was a real “find”… am presently in Mexico and wanted a recipe for lemon bars that used ingredients I have on hand… which was everything except the confectioners sugar. So I looked up online how to make confectioners sugar from regular sugar. I used my blender and just blended it into powdered sugar… for the sprinkle of powdered sugar topping. I may never buy powdered sugar again.
I also want to say it’s a good idea to let these set a little while after cooking before serving them. But then they are perfect! Thank YOU!

Follow the recipe exactly and you will NOT be disappointed. They dough may look like it won’t fill out the bottom of a 9×13-don’t worry, it will and the lemon topping will be watery when you place it in the oven-don’t worry, it will stiffen up.

Never made before tonight, will make again for sure! Big hit and super easy.

Recipe made about 15 bars (appx 2in by 2in) but you can get more out of it easier by cutting differently.

I made these yesterday in glass bakeware and cooked the crust at 325 as directed. That was a BAD idea. I had to cook the crust for an additional 8 or 10 minutes after that…I looked up a few other lemon bar recipes, and they all say bake at 350. I’d suggest removing that part from the recipe.

After that, I baked the entire thing (with the lemon topping) at 350, not 325, and it turned out great.

The recipe is amazing! I’ve made it so many times! But how would one go about to incorporate some blueberries into this recipe? Would I just add them or should something be scaled back on to get the right consistency?

Here’s a new one! My pan came out of the oven with one side of the pan looking great; however, the other side had the bottom layer on top and the lemon custard on the bottom. Tastes ok (except its difficult to get them cut with the parchment paper there………). Probably my oven.

Made these luscious lemon squares tonight. Perfection and super easy to make. I grated my cold butter into the food processor to ensure a fine crumble base. Added the seeds of one vanilla bean pod to the cookie base. 3 juicy Meyer lemons gave me 3/4 of a cup of juice. Used the zest of all 3 lemons in the curd. Delish! I’m going to make them with a meringue layer next time. Thx!

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Hi, I'm Barry. I'm Dad to 2 amazing kids, author of 3 best-selling cookbooks, a freelance food writer & full time blogger. My lifetime love of cooking & baking has led me to share over 1600 recipes on this blog over the last 10 years. Come back often, there's always great new food & recipes coming out of my St. John's, Newfoundland kitchen!

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